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Ryne Nelson
Kobe: Offseason's BIGGEST name
Aug 1
It’s a busy day for NBA media moguls.
Shaq re-ups for five-years, $125 million…Magic Johnson promises he'll try to buy a team in Vegas…Phoenix shovels up its Joe Johnson mess and sends him packing to Atlanta…The Suns turn to over-the-hill Michael Finley as a replacement…
Oh, and of course, you can’t forget the Hornets’ season-changing accomplishment of coming to terms with Bostjan Nachbar…Finally!
It’s a busy day for NBA media moguls all right. And it’s a party at my house for sure!
I love busy, insane, tiring, chaotic, mind-drying-up-and-shipped-one-way-to-China days almost more than buttered noodles.
And I ain’t kiddin’!
I love days like Monday, August 1, 2005 because of my situation. I have the luxury of watching the chaotic eve of Tuesday, August 2, 2005, when the moratorium on signings and trades is lifted. I get to look at the big picture while every media mogul’s blindly trying to broach the exact details of Nachbar’s contract before the 11 p.m. Sports Center.
For the past few months, everyone’s vision is focused so narrowly in one direction, it’s almost a hilarious. It’s like I can hear mission control counting “T minus 10…9…8…7…6…” each morning leading up to Day 1 of the new, six-year Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Everyone’s workin’ hard to bring the latest news day by day, but what happened to the big picture?
I’d be so much less stressful for everyone all if people made use of their peripheral vision and saw a bit more of the entire offseason picture. It’s Diamonds are Forever not F*** 50.
This offseason, we’ve seen big names like Larry Hughes, Ray Allen, Michael Redd and O’Neal run the headlines. But I contend the biggest name that should immediately come to mind when talking about this particular summer is already lost in the brouhaha.
Kobe Bryant.
Yeah, it’s Mr. Sports Illustrated ad himself. Mr. Cause and Effect.
What I’ve seen over the summer is perfectly personified in Kobe. More specifically, the summer is like Bryant’s Nike ad.
For instance, people look at a trade like a sentence. Do they take time read it a couple times before they go on? No. They just rush on to the next sentence to read what happens next. They don’t take the time to comprehend the trade’s ramifications to the intricate web of League transactions. It’s back to what they know best – finding news piece by piece.
They see only one part of the whole.
KB8 is the same way. He hears all these things: “Ball hog.” “Prima donna.” “A baby.” “Not a team player.” And what does he do about it? Does he address the issues directly? Does he give a care whether his own coach called him “uncoachable”?
No. Bryant just goes back to what he knows best – working on his individual game. The prima donna is still here. The selfish player is still here. The uncoachable still can’t be coached.
And the worst part is he doesn’t know it.
Like “Leg curls 10 x 3,” “Film review,” “Suicides x 3,” “Box jumps x 3,” and “100m run x 10” are going to fix what the people are saying. His individual game is fine; his team game is not.
Kobe Bryant sees only one part of the whole.
But, believe it or not, this was not intended to be another Kobe-bashing project. Actually, it’s to point out a simple comparison.
People are living the same, skewed, cause-and-effect life as Kobe Bryant this summer.
J-Squared signs 72 million easy’s.
RealGM checks x 4.
Mike Redd flashes his first $90 smile.
Slam3 posts x 3.
B. Simms counts to 47 million.
Refresh ESPNcom x 6
Shaq counts to 125 million.
Skim125 new articles.
While Ziggy and Hughes agree to be teammates over the next five years (for $55 million and $60 million respectively, of course), people are looking as hard as they can for the next bit of offseason leads. It’s funny how so many try to act like Real GMs.
The NBA is an epidemic in the form of a League, overseen in the form of the reporters, and worshiped in the form of fans. Roles can get confused very easily.
It’s a hard, twisted world for those outside the NBA circle. Although it pains me to say, most would have it no other way. Just as Kobe just wouldn’t feel right without his “100 made free throws.”
To make it real simple, the damage is self-inflicted.
There’s something wrong when I don’t need the Internet to find the latest NBA news. Now, it just comes to me! All I have to do is sit in front of the computer and multiple IMs poof up magically with messages like “It’s done! Jason Williams is on the Heat!”
Quick. Easy. Good looking. Scary.
As the minutes slip away faster than ever before 12 p.m. Tuesday, message boards are blowing up, reporters are working triple shifts and – oh shoot! – was yesterday my grandmother’s birthday?! Someone please put an end to all the madness!
And by madness, I mean keep it all coming just the same.
Wait, does that make any sense?…Who cares, Kobe would understand.
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